Wild Expulsions and Killings of Ethnic Germans – a Collective Silence

Eastern German civilians fleeing massacres, February 1945

Refugees from the East of the German Reich 1945

German post-war refugees in Berlin 1945

Czech Television (ČT2) released a documentary film in 2010 showing atrocities committed on ethnic German civilians in post-war Czechoslovakia. Civil engineer Jirí Chmelnicek's film lay hidden for decades in an aluminum canister, shot with an 8 mm camera on May 10 1945, in the Prague district of Borislavka. Communist police asked about the film and threatened Chmelnicek. But he didn't turn over his reel. Jirí Chmelnicek wanted the world eventually to learn what had been done to defenseless people that day in May in Borislavka. His camera caught groups of ethnic Germans, who had been driven out of their houses and into Kladenska Street by Red Army and or Czech militias. Chmelnicek's film shows how the Germans were rounded up in a nearby movie theater, also called the Borislavka. Shots ring out and, one after another, each person in the line slumps and falls forward over a low embankment. The injured lying on the ground begs for mercy. Then a Soviet Red Army truck rolls up, its tires crushing dead and wounded alike. Later other Germans can be seen, forced to dig a mass grave in the meadow. External link: Töten auf tschechische Art. The expulsions were encouraged by Czech Communist politicians and highly supported by British PM Winston Churchill. On May 16 1945, Edvard Beneš - president of Czechoslovakia declared that the country must be completely purged of Germans and Magyars. These German and Hungarian “colonists” had settled in the area in the 12th and 13th century. Though some massacres could be explained as acts of cleansing, like the one in Postoloprty were about 800 German civilians were tortured and murdered on June 3-7 1945 or the one in Ober Moschtienitz near Prerau were 265 Carpathian Germans, 71 men, 120 women and 74 children, were forced to dig their own graves and murdered by Slovak soldiers on June 18-19 1945, others could not. Many ethnic Germans were in-fact murdered while trying to leave Czechoslovakia. A law, passed by the Czech authorities (the Beneš decrees: Act No. 115/1946 Coll) stated that all Czech crimes against ethnic Germans were not legible to penalty. The German Red Cross Search Service confirmed the deaths of 18,889 ethnic Germans during the expulsions from Czechoslovakia. Czech records indicated 22,247 deaths including 6,667 unexplained cases or suicides. Other sources puts the number of murdered Germans much higher, assuming that not all deaths were reported. Top image: German civilians fleeing massacres in East Prussia in February 1945. Photo taken by Vinzenz Engel. Credit: Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Fair use. Middle and bottom images: German refugees await accommodations in Berlin 1945. Both photos taken by American surgeon Dr. Edward Churchill. Credit: Jacob Westberg via Pinterest. Fair use.